Former President Donald Trump's legal defense team has to continue going after Michael Cohen to prevent a conviction in the Manhattan criminal case, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN's Sara Sidner on Wednesday — and there are two key points they need to hammer home if they want to do it.
Although Manhattan prosecutors have done everything in their power to corroborate Cohen's accounts of Trump's alleged criminal conduct in the hush payment scheme to adult film star Stormy Daniels, using independent evidence and witnesses, and although some experts believe the first round of the Trump defense team's cross-examination of Cohen went poorly, the fact remains that he's an impeachable witness, Honig said.
"I'm curious about timing, what you would change about the cross for tomorrow, and if you would go long, because we were expecting that they may go a lot longer," said Sidner.
The key point to understand, Honig said, is that "there are two huge areas that you want to drive home to the jury" if you're on Trump's legal defense.
"One, this guy hates Donald Trump with every fiber of his being, wants to see him brought in prison," said Honig. "Now, they did do some of that yesterday, but really only sort of in passing. I would drive that home, I would want the jury to think this is a person who is obsessed and possessed with taking down Donald Trump. And two, all the lies.
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"Michael Cohen has lied to Congress, to DOJ, to the FEC, to banks, to the IRS, to his family, to everyone you can name of. Now, I suspect they haven't gotten there yet, they are definitely going to spend a lot of time tomorrow on the lives. But again, that was only sort of loosely brushed by. So I would be thematic. Every question out of my mouth would be, he's a liar. He hates the defendant. You cannot take his word."
On the issue of whether they should "go long," Honig added, "I don't think longer is necessarily better. I would take as much time as it took to drive that home. I mean, a full day of cross is a lot, Sara. Obviously, this is the key moment of the trial. We do expect [defense lawyer] Todd Blanche to take most or all of the day."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Elie Honig outlines what Trump's lawyers must do to stop a conviction www.youtube.com
